


Dear Severus

by thewindupbird



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-27
Updated: 2012-04-27
Packaged: 2017-11-04 10:25:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewindupbird/pseuds/thewindupbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily Potter writes a letter</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Severus

Severus, Lily thinks absurdly, one evening, just a few days after she has become Lily Potter, was never the boy who showed up with flowers like James does - grinning like an idiot. Severus never had the money for those things. Severus was the boy who showed up at her door at quarter past ten in the evening with a jar of fireflies which he would hold in a delicate cupped palm.

 

He was never raucous laughter or loud jokes, but he was always, _always_ smiles hidden behind curtains of hair, or the back of his hand pressed hard to his lips.

 

Severus didn’t put his arms around her when he realised there was something wrong, but he would hover around anxiously, giving her sidelong looks until she had to laugh and punch him lightly on the shoulder and say, “Cheer up, Severus, it’s not that bad,” and it wasn’t. After all, the quiet boy from Spinner’s End usually had bigger problems than she did.

 

Once James showed up at her window, late at night during Christmas holidays, shivering and brimming with excitement, and they snuck out and went dancing until five in the morning. She’d had to sneak back in, flushed and alive. Severus used to come to her window in the middle of the night with bruised eyes and cut lips, flinching under her gentle fingers while she tried as best she could to make the hurt go away.

 

James had called to her across crowded classrooms - shouting his love from the rooftops if you will, and Severus… _Oh, Severus_ …

 

Lily stares out the window of their little flat, her back to James who is sound asleep.

 

Severus carried it quietly, in his heart, but she saw it, she always knew. It was there in his eyes when he looked at her. It was in the way they would hold hands like children, palm-to-palm, fingers unentwined on those long, long walks they used to take back home.

 

The way he smiled at her - only ever at her.

 

She climbs out of bed now, glancing back at James, sleeping, before she walks down the hall.

 

_‘Dear Severus,’_

 

She writes, standing at the tiny writing desk in the corner of their sitting room, the desk-lamp the only light on in the house.

_I miss you_ she thinks. She thinks so many things then, shivering in her t-shirt which is actually James's. The floor is cold beneath her feet.

 

She thinks _I’m sorry_ , she thinks _don’t hate me_ , she thinks _remember that time…_ and _If you were here, you would_ tell _me this wallpaper is ugly, even though I_ know _…_

She thinks _You’re not here_.

 

She thinks _I never thought it would end like this._

She stares at her paper. It says five words.

 

_Dear Severus,_

_I miss you._

She hesitates, then writes _‘I never stopped loving you, you know’_

 

But then she stops, because how does she go on? How does she see him, look up into his face now?

 

He’d gotten so tall…

 

She crumples her letter. All twelve words - a handful of words that don’t say enough-- no…

 

She’s lying to herself. They say everything. But she’s too frightened of it - too frightened of the weight of those twelve words.

 

 _Dear Severus_.

 

She crumples the paper and throws it out, then bags up the rubbish for good measure and makes sure she takes it out in the morning.


End file.
